The present invention relates to a display package for longitudinally extended articles, and particularly to a display package capable of suspension from a limb or arm of a display rack. The present invention is particularly useful for the packaging of products having a cylindrical body portion, such as flashlights, batteries, and the like.
In the past, display packages of the type dealt with herein generally comprised planar structures to which the products were usually fastened, either by wires and the like, or by the enclosure of the entire mounted unit in a clear, plastic heat-sealed cover sheet. These types of construction, though requiring only a single-ply backing sheet, were costly to manufacture, as the operations of affixing the product to the package involved a series of manipulative steps and related machinery which was both time-consuming to operate and costly to maintain. The resulting packages were found to be too expensive in relation to the cost of the products thus packaged and other packaging techniques were explored.
One such technique, utilizing what is referred to as the shadow-box construction, provides a substantially rectangular, three dimensional container, one side of which is usually indented to provide upper and lower supports for a thus visible product. Though widely employed, this type of construction involves the preparation of a blank employing a large portion of packaging material in relation to the product. Likewise, the assembly of the blank into the finished package usually involves several manipulative steps, often including the adhesion of a portion of the blank to itself in a separate operation.
From the above, it can be seen that the packaging known to date requires either a complex configuration involving a plurality of sequential operations, and/or a significant expenditure in packaging materials. Particularly respecting the latter, it is well known that the cost of plastic film such as that employed in packaging has risen sharply, and useful alternatives to such materials are being sought.